HEPIALIDiE. 
541 
lector who is looking for them and nothing else, Meyrick’s printed in¬ 
structions to collectors are useful, and Kearfott has an extremely valuable 
series of papers on collecting, pinning, etc., in the Entomological News 
(U. S. A.), for March, April and June 1904. Our knowledge of the group 
would be much increased if there were workers in this subject alone in 
so favourable a field as India. 
These are large moths of 
peculiar facies, found solely in 
the hills, none occurring, or very 
rarely, at low elevations or in 
the cultivated pains. They are 
regarded as the most generalised 
of existing moths, after the 
Micropterygidce, the wings being 
but little specialised. The 
antennae are short and filifpnh7 
the legs short, the proboscis not 
developed. The narrow wings 
and long body suggest the 
Cossid moth. 
So far as known, the larvae 
are borers in plants, often in 
roots. Phassus is the best known 
genus in India, with several large 
species. Only twelve are recor¬ 
ded as Indian. Phassus mala- 
haricus, Mo., was reared from a 
larva boring a tea bush in the 
Nilgiris ; the moth hangs by day 
Hepialim;. 
Both wings with twelve nervures , 
the cell of the hindwing emitting 
more than 6. No maxillary 
palpi or tibial spurs. 
Fig. 346— Phassus malabaricus in- 
resting- ATTITUDE X 1. 
